Week 10 Forum/Discussion Board: Multiple Gestations Twinning!!

 
 
Picture of Hailey Indelicato
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Hailey Indelicato - Monday, 8 March 2021, 6:07 PM
 

I would first sweep through each baby to see get my bearings, then I will move to moms anatomy including, cervix, ovaries, uterus, and placenta. Then I would continue to treat a multiple gestation pregnancy just as a single pregnancy. Taking one at a time, starting with baby A (the one closest to the cervix) and then moving to baby b and c and so on, making sure to labeled each fetus correctly as I move along. I think this would help me stay consistent and on track with what I'm scanning. Jumping around from baby to baby would be extremely confusing and I would most likely forget things. The radiologist also has to be able to understand the scan so being consistent is really important for their sake as well. I would stick to my same protocol for a singleton, and just double or triple it. 

Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndromewhere twins share one placenta  and one of the twins ends up being a donor for the other because the vessels are not evenly dispensed between the 2 fetuses. The donor ends up giving away more blood than it receives and is at risk for malnourishment and the recipient is at risk for receiving too much blood and can overwork the heart. 

Twin Embolization Syndrome is a complication of monozygotic twinning following in utero demise of the co-twin. Passage of thromboplastic material into the circulation of the surviving twin results in ischemic structural defects in various organs 

Twin Reversed-Arterial Perfusion arises when the cardiac system of one twin (pump twin) does the work of supplying blood for both twins. The increased pumping of the heart puts this twin at risk for cardiac failure. The receiving twin (acardiac twin) lacks a heart or has one that is not fully formed. 

Documenting these pathologies is extremely important and can cause so many other issues down the line so being precise and accurate is so so important. It's also important to be consistent like I mentioned before because if someone comes behind you to scan this patient again, and they can't be sure which baby is which from your scan, it's will go downhill and the tech doing the follow up will have an extremely hard time. The pathologies I mentioned are vascular anomalies so throwing on color will be very important to prove the  diagnoses, rather than with something like conjoined twins I would want to clearly see the attachment site and also include color to see if any vascularity is attaching them as well like we saw in the power point today. 

Twin reversed arterial perfusion - illustration | Radiology Case |  Radiopaedia.orgTwin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS): Stages & Diagnosis | SSM Health

Picture of Leah Borries
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Leah Borries - Monday, 8 March 2021, 7:39 PM
 

Great job adding the note about Doppler! We should always remember to use the resources we have and let the machine do the work for us.

For example, TRAP:

Can you find any other examples of Doppler being used to assess pathology in twin pregnancies?

Picture of Hailey Indelicato
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Hailey Indelicato - Thursday, 11 March 2021, 9:53 PM
 

Yes I can Leah! I'm actually going to be talking about a few different doppler examinations during my presentation on monday, we should be using doppler to access the umbilical artery, the middle cerebral artery, and the ductus venous. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into depth just yet!

Picture of Leah Borries
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Leah Borries - Friday, 12 March 2021, 7:38 PM
 

Awesome! Looking forward to it!

Picture of Sarah Swager
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Sarah Swager - Thursday, 11 March 2021, 5:41 PM
 

Hailey,

 

So there's a way to help with twin to twin transfusion syndrome! Apparently doctors can cut the blood supply flowing from the donor. They use ultrasound to guide it!    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLdZAZck2dU

 


Sarah

Picture of Leah Borries
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Leah Borries - Thursday, 11 March 2021, 7:11 PM
 

Wow!! Great video Sarah. It was interesting to learn that this procedure as a 90% likelihood of at least 1 fetus surviving, and 65% likelihood of both surviving.

Picture of Alexis Rojas
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Alexis Rojas - Thursday, 11 March 2021, 8:06 PM
 

Amazing video! Thank you for sharing. So cool to see the lasers in action. 

Speaking of lasers, I found this video of a fetoscope cord transection on a set of twins with TRAP and cord entanglement. The procedure used a laser to coagulate the blood in the cord of the acardiac twin and then transected the cord. Another treatment option for TRAP is radio-frequency ablation. 

Picture of Karen Chow
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Karen Chow - Thursday, 11 March 2021, 7:11 PM
 

Hi Hailey!

I looked more into TRAP and it's so sad... This is definitely something to keep an eye out for while scanning. We can't just see baby "silhouettes" and leave it at that, we definitely need to thoroughly scan to make sure nothing out of the ordinary is developing with babies. 

I feel like this pic really puts more emphasis on how the acardiac twin is only viable off the blood being pumped into it's system.

The way this website explained TRAP breaks my heart.. imagine being so excited for twins just to find out that this happened.

https://health.ucdavis.edu/children/clinical_services/fetal-care-treatment-center/conditions/Twin-reversed_Arterial_Perfusion.html

Picture of Hailey Indelicato
Re: Twins and Scanning for anomalies...
by Hailey Indelicato - Thursday, 11 March 2021, 10:00 PM
 

Thanks for doing more research Karen! I love the image you shared. It's extremely sad to think of these kinds of things but they do happen unfortunately. In cases like these we need to not only be very diligent with our exam, but also our jobs require us to be empathetic. I'm finding myself feeling more and more empathy with some of my patients, it's crazy how much you can get to know someone after only 30 minutes. I can imagine how well we would get to know an at risk pregnancy patient like Dr. Wilson mentioned.